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		<title>My GT-i9300 has been stolen! &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2016/07-July/21.xhtml&gt;</title>
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			<h1>My GT-i9300 has been stolen!</h1>
			<p>Day 00502: Thursday, 2016 July 21</p>
		</header>
<p>
	Today was a day of walking around town running various errands.
	My first stop was at First Tech Federal Credit union, where I asked a representative to change my address on file with them.
	The representative asked me for my Social Security number, so I explained that I don&apos;t carry my Social Security card on me when I go out.
	However, they were able to access my account and make the change using only mu photo <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr> and my previous address on file, so why did they even ask for my Social Security number?
</p>
<p>
	On the way to the mobile shop, I sat down at a bench to swap my <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card.
	To minimize the chance of the representatives giving me grief, I needed my mobile line to be active on the device that had the issue; the device that they had sold me.
	I got up and walked off, but for some reason, I turned around for a bit.
	I&apos;m not sure why I turned around, but I&apos;m glad that I did, as I saw that I&apos;d left my keys on the bench! It would have been a major pain to lose those.
</p>
<p>
	Once at the mobile shop, the clerk there looked up my account so I could pay my bill.
	They saw my name on the account, and were curious as to what area of the world the name &quot;Yst&quot; comes from.
	I explained to the clerk that it was a chosen name, not a given name, and that it didn&apos;t really come from anywhere.
	The clerk started acting funny and asking for my real name, and though I explained that &quot;Yst&quot; <strong>*is*</strong> my real name, that didn&apos;t seem to convince them.
	I explained that there&apos;s a difference between a real name and a legal name, but that only got them questioning my legal name, which I obviously didn&apos;t want on the account, so I obviously refused to give them.
	They kept pushing, saying that it was store policy, so I said that if that was the case, I&apos;d find a new carrier.
	Reluctantly, the clerk stopped pestering me, and said that they&apos;d leave my preferred name on the account for now.
	They seemed to be implying that I&apos;d have to &quot;fix&quot; that later, but that&apos;s never going to happen.
	After paying my bill, I asked the clerk about the headphones.
	I showed them that when the headphones are plugged in, the status bar displays a headphone icon, so the headphones are registering.
	I also showed them that the headphones work just fine in my GT-i9300.
	However, even when the headphones are plugged into the carrier-provided device, sound will only play out the mobile&apos;s speakers, never the headphones.
	Furthermore, when the headphones are unplugged from the device, the music shuts off and stops playing through the device&apos;s speakers, as if the speakers were the headphones.
	I kind of wondered if the headphones were being treated incorrectly by the device due to the microphone built into the headphones.
	The device might be treating headphones as a telephone-only-headset.
	The clerk was able to give me more information than I had though.
	Though they didnt have a solution, they showed me the differences in a headphone-only jack and my headphone-plus-microphone jack.
	They said that low-end devices don&apos;t always support both types of jacks.
</p>
<p>
	On the way to the post office, I switched the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card back into my GT-i9300, as I would need the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card in there to show them that their website was refusing to allow me to view it, let alone submit a change-of-address form.
</p>
<p>
	Once in line at the post office, I loaded the United States Postal Service website on my mobile to show the postal worker that I couldn&apos;t use their broken website.
	However, instead of a stupid <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr>-discrimination page, the website actually loaded a usable page! Are some <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr> <abbr title="Internet Protocol">IP</abbr> addresses not blocked? I told Orbot to build a new path through the <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr> network, and sure enough, the website went back to blocking me.
	Most <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr> exit nodes are indeed blocked.
	It turned out to be a moot point though, as when I asked for a change-of-address form, they gave it to me without asking me to fill it out online.
	I filled it out while I was there, then turned it it.
</p>
<p>
	My next stop was the bank.
	As feared, that branch belonged to the wrong bank, so I didn&apos;t go in and get them to change my address on file.
	I&apos;ll probably do it online at some point.
</p>
<p>
	On the way to the store to complete my mother&apos;s errand, I passed by my old house on H Street.
	That house now has at least five security cameras on the front of it, which hadn&apos;t been there when we moved out.
	What? Who needs five security cameras on the front of such a small house? Clearly, they&apos;re up to something.
	Those five cameras were only the obvious ones too, there are probably cameras that I didn&apos;t notice.
	That neighborhood isn&apos;t the best, and the house next door used to belong to a drug dealer when we were living in it.
	My best guess is that the people living in our old house are likewise doing something illegal.
</p>
<p>
	At the store that I needed to return items to, the checker demanded to see my photo <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr>.
	I didn&apos;t want to show them, and had this been my own errand, I wouldn&apos;t have.
	However, I needed this to go well because it was my mother&apos;s errand, so I reluctantly complied.
	It&apos;s worth noting though that normally, I wouldn&apos;t have been able to comply.
	I don&apos;t carry <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr> with me most of the time, and it&apos;s my right as a citizen of Oregon to leave my <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr> at home as long as I&apos;m not driving.
	However, I needed my <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr> to make changes to my credit union account, so I did have it on me today.
</p>
<p>
	Because it was on the way home, I stopped in a second mobile shop affiliated with my carrier.
	They seemed less knowledgeable about the headphone issue than the person at the other shop, and insisted that my headphones were broken.
	It didn&apos;t matter that my headphones work perfectly in my other device, they were sure that the headphones were to blame, not the device.
</p>
<p>
	On the way home, I stopped at a grocery store for a snack.
	This is where the trip went downhill.
	I mistakingly left my GT-i9300 there.
	I walked about halfway home before I noticed that I didn&apos;t have my mobile device any more, and turned back.
	Once at the store again, my mobile was missing.
	I know exactly where I set it down, but someone had taken it.
	I checked with customer service, but the only device that they had in lost-and-found wasn&apos;t mine.
	It was a stupid iPhone in a blue case.
	Thankfully, my device was encrypted, so the thief won&apos;t have my personal information.
	However, there was also information on that device that I can&apos;t replace.
</p>
<p>
	Back home again, I contacted my carrier and had them blacklist my <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>.
	The thief won&apos;t profit from my device.
	However, my carrier claims not to be able to track my device through the towers.
	I know very well that they can triangulate a general location from the cell towers, but they claim that unless I have a Google account attached to the device, it cannot be found remotely.
	Google won&apos;t allow me to create an account though, and even if they did, it&apos;s unlikely that Google&apos;s tracking service would work without the proprietary Google applications installed.
	The first representative that I spoke to claimed to blacklist the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>, but actually failed to do so.
	The second representative blacklisted the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> and locked down the account, so the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card can&apos;t be transfered to another device and the service used from there.
</p>
<p>
	I walked down to the police station to see if anything could be done, but as expected, it doesn&apos;t sound like they&apos;re going to do anything.
	I did file a missing property report though, and was told that my case number is 16-6675.
</p>
<p>
	Once home again, I spoke to my mother, who thought that their interview went well, but they didn&apos;t get the job.
	They&apos;re also thretening Vanessa, saying that they have one week to clean their bedroom or they&apos;ll kick Vanessa out.
	My mother asked me what it would take to replace my stolen device, so I said that I probably wasn&apos;t going to replace it.
	I wasn&apos;t sure if I was going to replace it when it eventually died, and I wasn&apos;t sure that I could justify buying a new device that could again be stolen when we&apos;re tight on money.
	However, my mother &quot;wants a way to contact me&quot; and desktop email doesn&apos;t work for them.
	They also brought up that we need my mobile to keep their desktop computer connected to the Internet.
	Reluctantly, I&apos;ve now ordered a used GT-i9100.
	This time, I want a case with that can have an attached lanyard.
	I can attach that to my belt loop to avoid setting the device down and forgetting it again.
	The estimated delivery period is from July 27 to August 1.
	I&apos;ve now updated my billing address with Discover.
</p>
<p>
	Bandcamp contacted me about their unwarranted attempts to charge me <abbr title="value-added tax">VAT</abbr> on my purchases.
	They blamed my proxy and actually asked me to disable it.
	They also mentioned that Bandcamp, in addition to <abbr title="Internet Protocol">IP</abbr> address sniffing, makes use the PayPal account location and the Bandcamp location settings into account.
	I&apos;ll try setting my Bandcamp location to an address next time that this happens.
	Also, it seems that Bandcamp has my legal name.
	It might be from original purchases before I used the correct credit card.
	I tried to reply to Bandcamp&apos;s email, but I can&apos;t send emails for some reason.
	My email client claims that the password is bad.
	I&apos;ll have to try again after I have the new mobile device, as I&apos;ll be able to log in through the Web interface.
	I can&apos;t do that now though, as I need to use the Authenticator application for two-factor authentication.
	Otherwise, I can&apos;t get into the account.
</p>
<p>
	<strong>*Update (<a href="/en/weblog/2016/10-October/05.xhtml">2016-10-05</a>)*:</strong> This entry mentions that because the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> was blacklisted, the thief won&apos;t profit from my device.
	It&apos;s worth noting though that information that I learned later shows this to be untrue though.
	Specifically, it&apos;s entirely possible to change a device&apos;s <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>, especially if the device is rooted, and this one is.
	The thief probably changed the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> before selling it.
	They probably also installed a non-Replicant operating system to restore the missing Wi-Fi, bluetooth, and <abbr title="Global Positioning System receiver">GPSr</abbr> functionality, among other things.
</p>
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			Copyright © 2016 Alex Yst;
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			If for some reason you would prefer to modify and/or distribute this document under other free copyleft terms, please ask me via email.
			My address is in the source comments near the top of this document.
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			For more information on that, see <a href="/en/a/licensing.xhtml">licensing</a>.
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